Historical And Critical Notices of the Principal Dramas Of Shakspeare. (continued 2)

"He had in his company an ensign of a very amiable outward appearance, but whose character was extremely treacherous and base. This rascal had also conducted his wife with him to Cyprus, who was a handsome and discreet woman; and, being an Italian, Desdemona was so fond of her that they passed the greatest part of their time together. In the same company was also a lieutenant, to whom the Moor was much attached. The lieutenant went often to the Moor's house, and dined frequently with him and his wife. Desdemona, seeing that the Moor was so fond of him, showed him every mark of attention and civility, with which the Moor was much pleased. The detestable ensign, forgetting his duty to his own wife, and violating all the laws of friendship, honor, and gratitude with which he was bound to the Moor, fell passionately in love with Desdemona, and sought by all the private means in his power to make her conscious of his love. But she was so entirely taken up with the Moor that she thought neither of him nor of any one else; and all that he did to engage her affections produced not the least effect. He then took it into his head that this neglect arose from her being pre-engaged in favor of the lieutenant; and not only determined to get rid of him, but changed his affection for her into the most bitter hatred. He studied, besides, how he might prevent in future the Moor from living happily with Desdemona, should his passion not be gratified. Revolving in his mind a variety of methods, all impious and abominable, he at last determined to accuse her to the Moor of adultery with the lieutenant. But knowing the Moor's great affection for Desdemona, and his friendship for the lieutenant, he determined to wait till time and place afforded him a fit opportunity for entering on his wicked design; and it was not long before the Moor degraded the lieutenant for having drawn his sword and wounded a soldier upon guard. This accident was so painful to Desdemona that she often tried to obtain for him her husband's pardon. In the mean time, the Moor had observed to the ensign that his wife teased him so much in favor of the lieutenant that he feared he should be obliged at last to restore to him his commission. 'Perhaps,' said the villain, 'Desdemona is fond of his company.' 'And why?' said the Moor. 'Nay,' replied he, 'I do not choose to meddle between man and wife; but if you watch her properly, you will understand me.' Nor would he, to the earnest entreaties of the Moor, afford any further explanation." [Footnote 27]

The novelist then goes on to relate all the practices of the perfidious ensign to convince Othello of Desdemona's infidelity. There is not a single detail in Shakspeare's tragedy which does not occur also in Cinthio's novel. The handkerchief of Desdemona, that precious handkerchief which the Moor had inherited from his mother, and which he had given to his wife during the early days of their love; the manner in which the ensign obtains possession of it, and leads to its discovery in the chamber of the lieutenant, whom he is desirous to ruin; the Moor's insistence upon having this handkerchief produced, and the trouble into which Desdemona is thrown by its loss; the artful conversation of the ensign with the lieutenant, to which the Moor listens at a distance, and fancies he hears all that he dreads; the plot of the duped Moor and the wretch who is deceiving him, to assassinate the lieutenant; the blow which the ensign strikes him from behind, and which cuts off his leg; in a word, all the facts, whether important or not, upon which the various scenes of the play successively rest, have been supplied to the poet by the novelist, who had doubtless added a great number of embellishments to the historical tradition which he had discovered. The dénouement alone is different; in the novel, the Moor and the ensign together murder Desdemona during the night, pull down the ceiling on the bed in which she slept, and say she has been crushed by this accident. The true cause of her death long remains unknown. Ere long the Moor conceives a dislike to the ensign, and dismisses him from his army. Another adventure leads the ensign, on his return to Venice, to accuse the Moor of the murder of his wife. The Moor is recalled to Venice and put to the torture, but he denies the charge; he is banished, and the relatives of Desdemona have him assassinated in his exile. A new crime leads to the arrest of the ensign, and he dies racked with tortures. "The ensign's wife, who had been informed of the whole affair," says Giraldi Cinthio, "after his death, thus circumstantially related this story."

It is clear that this dénouement could nob be brought on the stage; and Shakspeare changed it because it was absolutely necessary to do so. In other respects, he has retained and reproduced every incident; and not only has he omitted nothing, but he has added nothing. He seems to have attached almost no importance to the facts themselves; he took them as he found them, without giving himself the trouble to invent the slightest addition, or to alter the slightest incident.

He has, however, created the whole; for, into the facts which he has thus exactly borrowed from another, he has infused a vitality which they did not inherently possess. The narrative of Giraldi Cinthio is complete; it is deficient in nothing that seems essential to the interest of a recital; situations, incidents, progressive development of the principal event, external and material construction, so to speak, of a pathetic and singular adventure—all these things are contained in it, ready for use; and some of the conversations even are not wanting in a natural and touching simplicity. But the genius which supplies the actors to such a scene, which creates individuals, imparts to each his peculiar figure and character, and enables us to witness their actions, to hear their words, to anticipate their thoughts, and to enter into their feelings; that vivifying power which commands facts to rise, to go onward, to display themselves and to effect their accomplishment; that creative breath, which, diffusing itself over the past, resuscitates it, and fills it in some sort with a present and imperishable vitality; this is what Shakspeare alone possessed; and by means of this, from a forgotten novel, he made "Othello."

All subsists, in fact, and yet all is changed. We no longer hear of a Moor, a lieutenant, an ensign, and a woman, the victim of jealousy and treason. We behold Othello, Cassio, Iago, and Desdemona real and living beings, who resemble no other, who present themselves in flesh and bone before the spectator—all entwined by the bonds of a common position, all carried away by the same event, yet each having his own personal nature and distinct physiognomy, and each co-operating to produce the general effect by ideas, feelings, passions, and acts which are peculiar to him, and result from his individuality. It was not the fact, it was not the position which struck the poet, and from which he sought to obtain all his means of a wakening interest and emotion. The position appeared to him to possess the conditions of a great dramatic scene; the fact struck him as a suitable frame-work into which life might be appropriately introduced. Suddenly he gave birth to beings complete in themselves, animated and tragic, independently of every particular position and every determinate fact; he brought them forth capable of feeling, and of displaying beneath our eyes all that the special event in which they were about to take part could make human nature experience and produce; and he launched them forth into this event, feeling very sure that, whatever circumstances might be furnished him by the narrative, he would find in them, as he had made them, a fruitful source of pathetic effects and of truth.

Thus the poet creates, and such is poetical genius. Events, and even positions, are not what he deems most important, or what he takes delight in inventing; his power aims at exercising itself otherwise than in searching after incidents of a more or less singular character, and adventures of a more or less touching nature; it manifests itself by the creation of man himself; and when it creates man, it creates him complete, armed at all points as he should be, to suffice for all the vicissitudes of life, and to present the aspect of reality in every sense of the word. Othello is something far more than a blind and jealous husband, urged to commit murder by his jealousy; this is only his position during the play, and his character goes far beyond his position. The sun-burned Moor, with ardent blood, and a keen and brutal imagination, credulous by the violence of his temperament as well as by the excess of his passion; the successful soldier, proud of his fortune and his glory, respectful and submissive to the power from which he holds his rank, never forgetting the duties of war in the blandishments of love, and bitterly regretting the joys of war when he loses all the happiness of love; the man whose life has been harsh and agitated, for whom gentle and tender pleasures are something novel which astonishes while it delights him, and which does not inspire him with a feeling of security, although his character is full of generosity and confidence; Othello, in a word, delineated, not only in those portions of himself which have a present and direct connection with the accidental position in which he is placed, but in the whole extent of his nature, and as he has been made by the entire course of his destiny; this is what Shakspeare enables us to see. In the same manner, Iago is not merely an irritated enemy desirous of revenge, or an ordinary rascal anxious to destroy a happiness which he can not contemplate with satisfaction; he is a cynical and reasoning wretch, who has made for himself a philosophy of egotism and a science of crime; who looks upon men merely as instruments or obstacles to his personal interests; who despises virtue as an absurdity, and yet hates it as an injury; who preserves entire independence of thought, while engaged in the most servile conduct; and who, at the very moment when his crimes are about to cost him his life, still enjoys, with ferocious pride, the evil which he has done, as if it were a proof of his superiority.

Pass in review all the personages of the tragedy, from its heroes down to the least important characters—Desdemona, Cassio, Emilia, Bianca; we behold them appearing, not under vague aspects, and with those features only which correspond to their dramatic position, but with precise and complete forms, and all the elements which constitute personality. Cassio is not introduced merely to become the object of Othello's jealousy, and as a necessity of the drama; he has his own character, inclinations, qualities, and defects; and from what he is naturally flows the influence which he exercises upon what occurs to him. Emilia is not merely an attendant employed by the poet as an instrument either of the entanglement or of the discovery of the perfidies which lead to the catastrophe; she is the wife of Iago, whom she does not love, and whom she obeys because she fears him; but although she distrusts him, she has actually contracted, in the society of that man, somewhat of the immorality of his mind; nothing is pure either in her thoughts or in her words; and yet she is kind-hearted and attached to her mistress, and detests evil and deeds of darkness. Bianca herself has her own physiognomy, entirely independent of the little part which she plays in the action. Forget the events, set aside the drama, and all these personages will continue real, animated, and distinct; they possess inherent vitality, and their existence will not disappear with their position. In them is displayed the creative power of the poet, and the facts, to him, are only the stage upon which he bids his characters appear.

Just as the novel of Giraldi Cinthio, in Shakspeare's hands, became "Othello," so, in the hands of Voltaire, "Othello" became "Zaire." I do not wish to compare the two works; such comparisons are almost always vain jeux d'esprit, which prove nothing, except the personal opinion of the judge himself. Voltaire also was a man of genius; the best proof of genius is the empire which it wields over men; wherever the power of interesting, moving, and charming a whole people is displayed, this fact alone answers every objection; genius is there, whatever fault may be found with the dramatic system or the poet. But it is curious to observe the infinite variety of the means by which genius manifests itself, and how many different forms the same ground-work of positions and feelings may receive from it.

Shakspeare borrowed facts from the Italian novelist; with the exception of the dénouement, he has rejected and invented none. Now facts are precisely what Voltaire has not borrowed from Shakspeare. The entire contexture of the drama, the places, incidents, and springs of action, are all new—all of his own creation. That which struck Voltaire, and which he desired to reproduce, was the passion, the jealousy—its blindness and violence; the conflict of love and duty, and its tragic results. The whole power of his imagination was brought to bear upon the development of this position. The fable, a free invention, was constructed with this sole end in view. Lusignan, Nerestan, the ransom of the prisoners—all the circumstances are intended to place Zaire between her love and the faith of her father, to explain the error of Orosmane, and thus to lead to the progressive manifestation of the feelings which the poet desired to delineate. He has not impressed upon his personages an individual and complete character, independent of the circumstances in which they appear. They exist only by and for passion. Beyond their love and their misfortune, Orosmane and Zaire have nothing to distinguish them, to give them a physiognomy peculiarly their own, and to make them every where recognizable. They are not real individuals, in whom are revealed, in connection with one of the incidents of their life, the particular characteristics of their nature and the impress of their whole existence. They are in some sort general, and consequently, somewhat vague beings, in whom love, jealousy, and misfortune are momentarily personified, and who interest less on their own account, and by reason of their own character, than because they then become for a time the representatives of this portion of the feelings and possible destinies of human nature.

From this manner of conceiving the subject, Voltaire has derived admirable beauties. Grave defects and omissions have also resulted from it. The gravest of all is that romantic tint which, as it were, subjects the whole man to love, and thus limits the field of poetry, at the same time that it derogates from truth. I will quote only one example of the effects of this system; but it will suffice to indicate all.

The Senate of Venice has just assured Othello of the tranquil possession of Desdemona; he is happy, but he must depart; he must embark for Cyprus, and devote his attention to the expedition confided to his care; so he says,

"Come, Desdemona, I have but an hour Of love, of worldly matter and direction, To spend with thee: we must obey the time."

These lines struck Voltaire, and he has imitated them; but, in imitating them, what does he put into the mouth of Orosmane, when equally happy and confident? Just the contrary of what Othello says:

"Je vais donner une heure aux soins de mon empire, Et le reste du jour sera a Zaire."

Thus Orosmane, the proud sultan, who, a moment before, was speaking of war and conquest, expressing his alarm for the fate of the Mussulmans, and blaming the sloth of his neighbors, now appears as neither sultan nor warrior; he forgets all else, and becomes only a lover. Assuredly, Othello is not less passionate than Orosmane, and his passion will be neither less credulous nor less violent; but he does not abdicate, in an instant, all the interests, and all the thoughts, of his past and future life. Love possesses his heart without invading his whole existence. The passion of Orosmane is that of a young man who has never done any thing, and never had any thing to do, and who is as yet ignorant of the necessities and labors of the real world. That of Othello takes root in a more complete, more experienced, and more serious character. I believe it to be less factitious, and in greater conformity to moral probabilities, as well as to positive truth. But, however this may be, the difference between the two systems is fully revealed in this feature alone. In one the passion and the position are all; from them the poet derives all his means. In the other he obtains his resources from individual characters and the whole of human nature; passion and a position are, for him, only an opportunity for bringing them on the stage with greater energy and interest.

The action which constitutes the subject of "Othello" must be referred to the year 1570, the period of the principal attack of the Turks on the island of Cyprus, then under the rule of the Venetians. As for the date of the composition of the tragedy itself, Mr. Malone fixes it in the year 1611. Some critics doubt whether Shakspeare was acquainted with the original novel of Giraldi Cinthio, and suppose that he only had access to a French imitation of it, published at Paris in 1584, by Gabriel Chappuys. But the exactness with which Shakspeare has conformed to the Italian narrative, even in the slightest details, leads me to believe that he made use of some more literal English translation.